Punk as a Strategy for Body Politicization in the Ljubljana Alternative Scene of the 1980s

Abstract

The paper focuses on the notion of punk understood as a political position and as a strategy by the actors of the Ljubljana alternative scene in the 1980s. With exposing the minor, invisible and hidden subjectivities the actors and agents of the scene created a ground for experimentation with subjectivities, but also for shaking the Yugoslav Grand National narrative of ‘brotherhood and unity’. I am emphasizing mainly the notion of the body with and through the code of sex and sexuality, being still a base and the core investment of the government. No matter that the discourse has been radically changed, the procedures and protocols of power investments in their core have not. This is an additional reason and a need to recall the past and tackle the bodies that have appeared as unwanted, as ‘not right and not quiet’ identities in the past in order to evaluate and compare the position of the marginalized and suppressed today. Additionally, I am claiming that only with creating different genealogies can we fight against growing ‘intellectual redundancy’ and the continuous process of erasure of the subjectivities, which we are confronting today. Article received: June 2, 2017; Article accepted: June 12, 2017; Published online: October 15, 2017; Original scholarly paper How to cite this article: Založnik, Jasmina. "Punk as a Strategy for Body Politicization in the Ljubljana Alternative Scene of the 1980s." AM Journal of Art and Media Studies 14 (2017): 145-156. doi: 10.25038/am.v0i14.217

Keywords

• Slovenia, Punk (and its metamorphoses), Ljubljana alternative scene of the 1980’s, body politic, non-normative bodies, the code of sex and sexuality